First, earthquakes; then tsunamis; then household spending collapses for the 13th month in a row… and now Japan is dealing with a volcano. NHK reports that Kuchinoerabu-jima, a volcano on Kuchinerabu Islands (off the southern-most tip of Japan) has erupted “explosively.” Officials have asked local inhabitants to evacuate the area. As yet there are no reported injuries.

Those men who wrote our Constitution made it perfectly intelligible to anyone who cared to read it. They also left some flexibility in its articles to ensure that as time passed and circumstances changed the document would remain viable as the indispensable protector of the republic they created and of the liberty of citizens who delegated a limited amount of their sovereign power to the national government through its provisions. And after a long and often

In “Cancel All Student Debt — The Petitions Begin,” we outlined The White House’s plan to explore “new bankruptcy options” for former students who, by virtue of an anemic US economic “recovery” or by virtue of their having majored in a subject that was exceedingly unlikely to land them a good job in any economy, find themselves in dire financial straits. On the heels of that, the calls began for the government to simply “cancel” the country’s $1.3 trillion student debt pile. Here, in what is a classic passage, is how we assessed the situation:

Sure, why not: leaving aside the very touchy topic of personal responsibility and accountability, in a world in which record debt is merely “replaced” by even more debt, and in which profits are privatized but losses are always socialized with taxpayers and future generations bearing the brunt in the form of a record $18.2 trillion in public debt (and some $7 trillion more if one adds the government-backed GSEs which one should), why not go ahead and “cancel” the debt. And don’t bother trying to explain the simple math that debt is never cancelled, as every liability is someone’s asset, and that asset holder will demand to be made whole in the form of more debt elsewhere or else, like Hank Paulson in 2008, it will scream mutual assured destruction and threaten to blow up the world unless bailed out.

Since then we’ve gone on to elaborate on the math behind underreported delinquency rates and taken an in-depth look at IBR, the “dirty little secret” that could end up costing taxpayers billions over time.

Mr. Gowdy’s chief interest, according to people briefed on the inquiry, is a series of memos that Mr. Blumenthal — who was not an employee of the State Department — wrote to Mrs. Clinton about events unfolding in Libya before and after the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. According to emails obtained by The New York Times, Mrs. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously, forwarding his memos to senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable.

“The supply of oil continues to build,” warns the CEO of one super-tanker fleet, and “all of this oil needs to go somewhere,” which is why the surge in super-tankers to a seven year high strong suggests all is not well in the world's hopeful 'demand' picture. With charter rates up a stunning 57% in the last few weeks with millions of barrels being stored on ships is another indication that the oil glut is yet to dissipate (and in fact, as Bloomberg reports, is getting worse – with almost half a billion barrels of oil in transit to buyers at the start of June, the most this year). With OPEC's meeting around the corner, a sudden realization of this rising glut may send prices plummeting once again.